Wired
by tswsots
Summary: Ellen wears a wire to the party for Tom, and things don't go as planned. Set in Season 2, I Agree, It Wasn't Funny. Patty/Ellen.
1. Chapter 1

The two FBI agents have made themselves at home in Ellen's hotel room. She gives them an appraising glance as she retrieves three beers from the bar (one of the advantages of hotel life). Sometimes having the Feds around still makes her feel like she's in a movie.

"So? What's your feeling on this dinner party?" Agent Harrison asks.

"I never want to go back to that apartment again," Ellen says quickly.

"If it's not now, you'll have to go some other time," Agent Werner points out, without taking his eyes off the magazine he's been perusing.

He's right.

"Yeah, I get that," she says.

"But it's your decision," his partner tells her. His face is empathetic. "If you're not ready, we understand."

"If you do go, we want you to record it," Agent Werner says, finally looking up.

Ellen shrugs this off. She doesn't mind wearing a wire, although the party is a purely social occasion and she doubts anyone will choose this time to divulge incriminating information. The challenge, of course, will be re-entering the space itself – seeing the same walls, tables and chairs she sees in her nightmares.

She takes the top off of her beer, takes a swig, and stares at herself in the mirror. What the Hell? She'll go.

* * *

><p>Ellen has told herself over and over that she can handle this, but as she walks through the glass doors of Patty's building, she is already on edge. <em>Calm down<em>, _Parsons_, she coaches herself in the elevator. _Think about something else_.

Phil opens the door and hands her a drink, which she accepts gratefully. She tries to be inconspicuous as she enters a room filled with music and conversation. She greets Tom and Deb, and then inhales sharply as she catches sight of the staircase. The sound of Corey's bark sends a jolt of hysteria through her. She makes a new effort to keep her mind blank, but it is already too late. The memory assaults her. The barking. The shattering glass. The terror. In her mind's eye, she sees her attacker's thin face hovering over her. She remembers straining with every fiber as she forced his arm away, putting distance between herself and the knife blade.

Uncle Pete catches her off guard by asking her to give a speech. Ellen stares at him, and he laughs, pleased to have fooled her. His laugh sounds sinister to her ears. She feels cold. She remembers the smell of blood, and the way it felt, hot and sticky all over her fingers. She thinks she might faint.

"Everything alright?" Patty asks.

Ellen tries to concentrate on Patty's hypocritical sympathetic look. She tries to focus on her anger and block out the sights and sounds that keep flooding back.

"Yeah. Just fine. Cheers," she says, and clinks glasses with Patty, but she feels unsteady on her feet, and she knows her face is betraying her.

After a drink Ellen is more relaxed, but the fact remains she would rather be anywhere else. She struggles to sustain a polite conversation with an investment banker; a friend of Phil's who is exasperatingly non-communicative.

She is knocking back a second drink when she feels Patty's light touch on her shoulder. "Ellen. I'd like you to meet someone. This is Andrew Doerfler, an old friend of mine, and a former teacher of Tom's."

"Tom took my American Government class when he was a freshman undergraduate," says the man Patty is presenting.

"Wow. Tom's professor. You knew him when, huh?"

"I sure did. He was a brilliant student." He shakes Ellen's hand. "It's a pleasure. Tom didn't mention you were beautiful." Professor Doerfler winks. He is in his seventies – old enough for the compliment to be safe.

"Oh, well. Thanks. Thank you," Ellen says.

Patty beams. "Ellen's been with us for just over a year, and she's made herself indispensible."

"Hardly." Ellen smiles uneasily. She hates it when Patty adopts this tone.

"You look younger than my niece," the professor says. "Patty must have hired you right out of law school."

"Yes, she did."

"Lucky you."

"Lucky me."

It comes out more sarcastically than Ellen intended. Patty smiles serenely, but the professor raises his eyebrows and there is an awkward silence.

"Excuse me," Professor Doerfler says after a minute. "I'm going to get a refill." He heads toward the bar.

"Ellen," Patty says in a dangerously sweet tone, "Could I speak to you alone?"

"Of course."

"Upstairs," Patty says, and Ellen follows her. A few heads turn as the two women vanish up the wood and glass stairway, but the guests don't seem unduly surprised to see their hostess leaving – they all know Patty's work day never ends.

Patty ushers Ellen into her bedroom. "You've been testing my patience all week, Ellen. I've had enough of your cheek." she says, closing the door behind them and fixing her associate with an enigmatic stare. "Do you have a problem with me? Or are you just flirting?" Patty's half smile deepens as she contemplates Ellen's startled face. "Be very careful how you answer," she says, her voice silky.

Ellen's thoughts are racing. _What is Patty doing? Does she suspect something? _Her boss is standing so close that Ellen can feel her breath. Ellen shivers, but doesn't look away.

"I – I don't have a problem with you, Patty—" she begins, without having any idea how she will finish her thought.

It turns out not to matter, because Patty says, "_Good_." And suddenly Patty's mouth is on Ellen's, and Ellen is staggering backward into a dresser. Patty's lips are soft and insistent. Warmth spreads through Ellen, and she finds herself kissing back. It has been a long time since she fantasized about this. Last year, when she was a new hire, she imagined what it would be like constantly. One word from Patty and Ellen would have been flat on the desk with her legs spread. Since the attack she's nurtured a different kind of fantasy.

As the older woman's hands start to roam over her body Ellen begins to panic. She is wearing a wire. And she can't let Patty find it. Oh, God, if Patty finds it…

"Stop," says Ellen urgently, seizing each of Patty's errant hands and pushing them away harder than she means to.

In an instant, Patty's face blazes with hurt and embarrassment. She fights to regain her composure. Ellen watches, aghast. In her revenge fantasies, she imagines Patty frightened, trembling and pleading for her life, but she has never imagined anything like this.

"Patty, wait…" Ellen says, and once again she has no plan for what to say next.

But Patty slips away, with one fiercely accusatory backward glance, through the bathroom door, and Ellen is left alone. She knows she has only a moment to think. For the investigation to bear fruit, Ellen needs to be on the inside. She needs Patty's trust and she has jeopardized it. Her pulse races as she reaches for her zipper. As the bathroom door opens, Ellen chucks her dress, together with the small recording device that is clipped to it, onto the floor. It hits the rug without a sound and slides part way under the bed.

Patty has fixed her hair and make-up, and there is no trace of the whirlwind of emotion Ellen was witness to scant seconds ago. But the sight of her associate standing in the bedroom in her underwear stops Patty in her tracks.


	2. Chapter 2

Patty smiles a tight, reptilian smile. "Did you lose something?" She indicates the dress on the floor.

"Patty you misunderstood me," Ellen says softly – tenderly, she hopes. "I thought I heard someone coming, that's why I asked you to stop. That's the only reason." She looks into Patty's intensely analytical stare and wills her boss to believe what she's said. For a moment, they are both totally still. The murmur of conversation and the clinking of glasses are audible below.

The glint in Patty's eye dares Ellen to make the first move. So she does. She takes Patty's hands in hers, and slowly and deliberately puts them back exactly where they were – one on her shoulder, the other just above her ass. Then she buries her own hands in the downy hair at base of Patty's skull, pulls her close and kisses her.

Only now does Patty begin to respond. She kisses back, then breaks contact and guides Ellen toward the bed.

Patty is a surprisingly playful lover. Ellen expected her to be commanding, all business. But Patty for some reason decides to try to kiss every bared part of Ellen - her wrist, her elbow, her shoulder, her nose, her belly button … when Ellen impatiently wriggles away, Patty giggles.

Time is passing, and, conscious of their conspicuous absence from the party, Ellen thinks it is only responsible to hurry things along. She roughly forces Patty's skirt up, and pulls her underwear down around her knees. Then she applies all her concentration to using her tongue to make Patty forget everything. She wants her to forget about the sarcastic remark Ellen made downstairs. She wants her to forget that Ellen pushed her away. She wants her to forget that she tried to have Ellen killed.

Or maybe Ellen herself wants to forget.

After Patty comes, she flips Ellen onto her back and slides her fingers under her associate's green lace panties. She sits back a little on her haunches so she can see Ellen's face. Her expression is dreamy as she thrusts her fingers into Ellen and watches the younger woman's shuddering orgasm.

Her work finished, she moves so that her face hovers above Ellen's, and grins down at her.

"I know you lied."

"What?" Ellen says, panting.

"You didn't hear someone coming. You just… changed your mind. I wonder why."

Patty shifts and sits up, apparently not expecting a response.

"I have guests I'm neglecting. Tonight is supposed to be about Tom, after all," she says wryly. She checks her face in a hand mirror on the bedside table and begins buttoning her shirt.

Ellen is still catching her breath, but remembering her dress and what is attached to it, she slithers to the floor and snatches it from under the bed. In her haste to put the dress on, she puts an arm through the neck hole. And as she disentangles herself, the wire is exposed for the briefest of seconds.

She looks up and sees Patty watching her. Shit. But if Patty saw something, she gives Ellen no indication.

"Take your time," Patty says, and leaves the room.

Ellen takes a few extra minutes to make sure her heart is still beating and her hair looks the way it did when she left the party. She checks her watch and sees that about twenty-five minutes have elapsed.

Then she returns to the living room, where she finds that Patty has already disseminated an excuse about a witness leaving her a voicemail they had needed to follow up on. She spends the rest of the evening coaxing stories about Tom's student days out of Professor Doerfler.

* * *

><p>Ellen spends a sleepless night. She paces the floor of her hotel room. Patty probably didn't see the wire. It was only visible for half a second, and Patty was several yards away. On the other hand, if she did see it, Ellen may be in mortal danger.<p>

Should she tell the FBI agents the investigation has been compromised? They can protect her. But she has a feeling they will shut down the operation, and Ellen doesn't want that. She wants Patty.

Wants Patty in jail, that is. Although…

She thinks of the way Patty's mouth caressed her shoulder eagerly, but gently. The way Patty's fingers felt inside of her.

Oh, Hell. She doesn't know what she wants anymore.

* * *

><p>The following morning, Patty ducks into Ellen's office and asks her about the infant mortality case. If it could have been a setup. Ellen's palms start to sweat. She will have to tell Harrison and Werner that Patty is suspicious.<p>

As she is leaving, Patty turns and says, "It was wonderful having you at dinner the other night. I hope you had fun."

Ellen nervously returns her smile. "I had a lovely time."


End file.
